Compound semiconductor materials are of great importance for the production of, for example, light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Suitable layer sequences are grown on a substrate to produce such LEDs. The performance of such LEDs is influenced, inter alia, by the substrate material used. The substrate material may in particular exhibit significant differences with regard to coefficient of expansion and/or lattice parameters compared with the material of the layer sequence. Sapphire or silicon carbide is therefore conventionally used as the substrate material for epitaxial growth since this material has a lattice structure adapted to the lattice structure of the compound semiconductor materials. The disadvantage of these substrate materials is however inter alia their high price.
An example of a favorable substrate material frequently used in semiconductor technology is silicon. When growing in particular nitride compound semiconductor materials on, for example, silicon substrates, however, strains arise due to different lattice parameters of the materials involved which may lead to a reduction in the crystal quality of the layers grown.
It could therefore be helpful to provide a semiconductor chip which can be produced inexpensively and at the same time exhibits reduced strain within the different materials of the semiconductor chip. It could also be helpful to provide an inexpensive production method for such a semiconductor chip.